Judge: City Must Void Racetrack Decisions

By Julie Fernandez

Tulare - In a ruling that appears to deal a severe blow to the Tulare Motor Sports Complex project, a Tulare County Superior Court judge is ordering the city to void all of its approvals for the proposed 700-acre development.

Judge Lloyd Hicks's Nov. 19 order means the city must rescind the land-use and zoning changes it made, the conditional-use permit it issued and the development agreement it approved in connection with the racetrack project.

Hicks' order came two months after a tentative decision in which he heavily criticized the environmental impact report upon which the Planning Commission and City Council based their votes.

“There is nothing remarkable about the scope of this judgment,” said Babak Naficy, the Sierra Club attorney who filed a legal challenge to the environmental document in January 2009. “The EIR was a pre-requisite to those decisions.”

Kara Ueda, who represented the city in court, and Steve Herum, who appeared on behalf of the developers, Tulare Motor Sports Complex, L.P., could not be reached for comment Monday. Ueda was on vacation and a call placed to Herum was not returned before deadline.

When Hicks issued his tentative ruling in September, neither city officials nor the developers seemed particularly upset, saying that they would need only to go back and redo portions of the EIR pertaining to possible mitigation measures to address the impact of the project on agriculture, climate and air quality.

But Hick's final judgment would appear to send the project back to square one in terms of obtaining the necessary land entitlements that would allow a recreational/retail/industrial office- type development on the land adjacent to the Agri-Center.

And while the developers were successful in obtaining the entitlements the first time around, there is no guarantee they would succeed again now that a new city council is in place.

Hick's ruling sends a message that the California Environmental Quality Act requires cities to seriously attempt to mitigate impacts on the environment and not dismiss possible measures simply because “the city found they would not be desirable,” Naficy said.

“The city wanted this project so badly, it was going to allow it to get away without feasible mitigation,” he said.

Mitigation is “sort of the heart of environmental review,” he said, adding that “without the fix, the review is sort of pointless.”

A city cannot just decide it doesn't want to take more mitigation measures and leave it at that, Naficy said.

Hicks, in his tentative decision, had said the city did not provide factual information to support the positions it took regarding the feasibility of certain mitigation measures.

“An inadequate analysis of feasibility is prejudicial, because it effectively precludes informed decision making and informed public participation, thereby thwarting the statutory goals of the EIR process,” the judge said.

City Manager Darrel Pyle said Monday that “not a lot of thought” needs to go into what to do next until the Agri-Center decides whether it will sell to the developers the land they need to move ahead with the project.

The developers reported in late October that they had finally secured financing for the project. They met with Agri-Center officials last Tuesday, but Jerry Sinift, Agri-Center CEO, would not comment on the meeting or say whether the board had made a decision.

When asked on Monday about a rumor the Agri-Center had decided against the sale, Mayor Craig Vejvoda and Council members Richard Ortega and David Macedo said they had not heard that.

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Sick Baby Finds Home at Tulare Regional

Tulare - The baby's name is Joules and she gets a lot of attention at Tulare Regional Medical Center, which has been her home for the past eight months.

Joules has had numerous seizures and other very serious problems since she arrived at the hospital, but the prognosis for her future is good.

“Joules is never going to die; Joules will always come through,” said Marie Gilbert, a registered nurse who came to Tulare Regional in May and continues to work as a consultant, training nurses, respiratory therapists and others on how to care for this special patient.

The baby was not born at Tulare Regional, but is a product of Laerdal Medical, a Norwegian-based company well known for the real-life mannequins it creates for training purposes. The Tulare Regional staff call her Joules – as in a unit of energy measurement – but her company name is SimBaby.

Like most babies, human or not, Joules costs a bundle -- $50,000 to be exact – but her real value is in the training opportunities she offers hospitals committed to improving quality of care.

A lot of hospitals in the Valley don't see a lot of very sick babies, so training is essential to provide the best possible care when those situations do arise, Gilbert said.

“One of the key things with simulation is making it as real as possible,” she said.
Joules is a far cry from the mannequins used for CPR training in the past.

She cries like a real baby, takes breaths, wheezes, grunts and her heart and pulse beat, all with the help of a nearby Dell laptop computer. Her fontanel, the soft spot on a baby's head, can be adjusted to present as normal, sunken or bulging. Her mouth can indicate cyanosis, the bluish skin condition that appears when there is not enough oxygen in the blood.

Nurses and respiratory therapists can practice intubations, inserting IVs and other procedures on Joules, and get instant feedback on their performance.

“She is on a rolling warmer to keep the situation realistic,” said Patti McGowan, director of perinatal and pediatric services for Tulare Regional. “You try to get to where you forget it's a fake person.”

McGowan said her staff of approximately 50 people will train frequently with Joules. Lionel Machado, director of respiratory therapy, said his goal is to have all 24 of his therapist undergo training.

Melissa Janes, director of education for Tulare Regional, said other departments will train with Joules as well.

High fidelity simulation training is highly supported by the latest research, especially for the younger generation employee, “because they do learn best by a real life situation,” Janes said.

“It's the latest way to affect critical thinking too,” she said, noting hospitals report new students don't have the high level of critical thinking skills that once was prevalent.

“One theory is that they get so much information so fast that they don't have time to prioritize,” she said. “This helps them to prioritize what needs to be done.”

An important component of this training is the debriefing sessions held afterwards. “We want them to discover what went wrong,” Janes said.

High fidelity simulation training is what prepared American airlines Capt. Chesley “Sulley” Sullenberger to safely land a passenger plan on the Hudson River in January 2009, she said.

SimBaby's father is SimMan and the hospital would eventually like to purchase this $80,000 Laerdal product as well.

“We'd really like to have the whole family, Janes said, reporting that the SimWoman and SimNewbie are still in production. SimBaby simulates a 6-month-old child, while SimNewbie will be a newborn.

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Encore Offers Christmas Comedy

Tulare - Whatever your favorite Christmas story, carol or custom may be, it will likely be referenced in Encore Theatre Company's production of “Every Christmas Story Ever Told (and Then Some!!!), which opens Friday, Dec. 4.

Billed as “a madcap romp through the holiday season,” the story centers on three actors who are preparing to perform – as they have year after year after year – Charles Dickens' “A Christmas Carol.”

The fun begins when one of them rebels and the trio decides, instead, to perform every Christmas story ever told and sing every carol ever sung. The show also features traditions from around the world.

“This is an exploration of what we mean when we say 'Christmas,'” said Denyse Weaver, who chose the script and is directing the play. “These three guys just start throwing out all the favorite kinds of Christmas things and what it means to them.”
This will mark the first time Encore has done the play.

“I seem to be one of the directors that goes out and finds the silly off-the-wall stuff,” Weaver said.

Encore veteran Mike Hamilton joins Alec Espinola and Ryan Turner for this comedic romp in which the three initially appear as themselves and then each takes on multiple roles.

“I kept having to put the script down and stop chuckling,” said Hamilton, who was on the show selection committee. “It struck my funny bone beautifully.”

Hamilton is a well-known figure not only to Encore audiences. He has done about 50 shows in the past 10 years and while most were performed at Encore, he has done others at the Barn Theater in Porterville, the Lindsay Theater, Ice House in Visalia and College of the Sequoias as well.

His last show, “The Greater Tuna” at the Ice House, was a two-man show in which he played 21 different characters – including six in one segment -- so he's definitely up to the challenge of this play.

Like Hamilton, Turner likes the show for its humor.

“I also like it because it's very fast-paced and there's not a lot of sitting around and waiting,” he said.

Turner, a sixth grade teacher at Mission Valley Elementary School, has performed in other Encore plays including “Dirty Works at the Crossroad,” “Singing in the Rain” and “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying.”

Espinola, a 21-year-old COS student who also works at Jamba Juice, takes on the role of the rebel who says “enough's enough” to “A Christmas Carol.” This does not really pain him because he is not a big fan of that play or of Dickens.

“He got paid by the word,” he said.

This is a busy time of year for the Tulare theater company, which turned its building into a haunted house in late October, leaving little time to build a set for the Christmas show.

But Turner, Encore veteran Nancy Gregg and April Brooks worked hard to provide a set well-suited to the storyline, Weaver said.

“Every Christmas Story Ever Told” was written by Michael Carleton, Jim FitzGerald and John K. Alvarez.

Also upcoming on Encore's schedule of activities are:

· Auditions for “Who's Got Talent” from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Dec. 11, and 3 to 6 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 10 at Cherry Avenue Middle School, 540 No. Cherry St. All acts are welcome and the top 10 will perform in the finals on Saturday, Jan. 22. For an application or information: Susan Burley, 289-2992 or e-mail shaggysue@comcast.net.

· Auditions for the spring semester of Stages, a program for youths from 5 to 7 p.m. on Dec. 7 and 14 at Encore Theatre, 324 So. N St. Registration is $50. Stages will perform: “Willy Wonka Jr.”, a musical, “The Great Ice Cream Scheme,” a melodrama, and “Sweet Things,” a pre-show. Show dates are March 24-27. Information: Susan Burley, 289-2994.

· Auditions for “Males Order Brides,” a melodrama, at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 6, 7, and 8. The cast is open to teenagers (high school age) and adults. Be prepared to sing, read and dance. Audition material will be provided. For location and other information: David Burley, 679-0482. Show dates are Feb. 11-13; 18-20, 24-26. Encore is scheduled to perform this play in February.

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Utility Rates: Water Low; Sewer High

Tulare - The caller was new to Tulare and worried about the cost of filling the swimming pool at his new house. Could he get a company to haul in the water instead?

Public Works Director Lew Nelson told him he could, but he didn't know why he would want to do that. The average swimming pool takes about 10,000 gallons, which would cost him an additional $6 on his water bill.

“You're kidding!” Nelson recalled the man saying.

The water rate for single-family homes in Tulare is $10.35 a month, the lowest among nine cities used for comparison in the region. Households are metered and the comparison assumes consumption of about 368 gallons of water per day.

On the other hand, the sewer rate -- $38 a month for single-family homes – is the highest among the comparison cities, which include Hanford, Porterville, Visalia, Kingsburg, Fresno, Selma, Lindsay and Corcoran.

Tulare's sewer rates are so high because the community has had to build a new $80 million industrial wastewater treatment plant and make improvements on the domestic side as well to meet state water discharge quality standards.

Because the state had issued a cease-and-desist order, the city would have faced huge daily fines had it not made the improvements.

As other Valley communities deal with cease-and-desist orders, their sewer rates will increase, Nelson said.

The latest rate comparison was presented to the City Council and the Public Utilities Board in connection with the proposed issuance of $18.9 million in sewer bonds to fund improvements to the domestic portion of the wastewater treatment plant.

Consultant 'Amazed'

Bond consultant Alex Handlers, vice president of Bartle Wells Associates, said Tulare's total monthly utility bill, including garbage service, is $71.35 for a single-family home, which falls in the middle range of all comparison cities.

“I'm amazed your rates are as low as they are,” Handlers said.

By law rates for water, sewer and garbage cannot exceed the cost of service, Handlers and Nelson said.

“Every utility is nonprofit by design and all we do with water is pump it out of the ground and send it to the house; and we put a little chlorine in each of the wells,” Nelson said. “When we drill our wells, they are very good producers, so there is very little capital invested in wells.”

Other communities surveyed face greater and more costly challenges in getting water to their customers.

While Tulare is sand and gravel all the way down to the aquifer, the city of Porterville has to deal with hard rock, Nelson said.

“So if they get about 450 gallons per minute of water from their wells, they're happy,” Nelson said. “If we don't get 1,800 gallons a minute, we consider it a failure.”

Like Tulare, the city of Corcoran has sand and gravel, but it also has high arsenic levels that require it to use a reverse-osmosis process.

“That just means more wells, very high electricity costs and very high pressure to make it work,” Nelson said.

Corcoran residents in single-family homes pay $51.56 a month, compared with Tulare's $10.35.

Communities such as Lindsay that use surface water also pay higher rates because that water must be treated.

“This is what all of Los Angeles gets, so their water cost is 10 times that of the Valley,” Nelson said.

The low water rate in Tulare does have a downside.

“The downside is water is so cheap in Tulare that people don't think about how much of it they're using, so it makes water conservation programs very difficult to implement, Nelson said.

Since installing water meters on all residential properties two years ago, the city has seen a downtick in water usage, but not as much as city officials expected, he said.

Water consumption was 18,870 acre feet in 2007, 18,663 in 2008 and 18,470 in 2009, according to city records.

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